Comments on: Access Linux Platform at LinuxWorld SF
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RE: ALP-OS doesn't have a snowball's chance of surviving.
http://www.pocketfactory.com/images/stories/cobalt_concept4.jpg
-------------------------------
PocketFactory, www.pocketfactory.com
Elitist Snob, www.elitistsnob.com
RE: ALP-OS doesn't have a snowball's chance of surviving.
RE: ALP-OS doesn't have a snowball's chance of surviving.
That's Ubuntu icon beside the application menu.
Yep. We were all running the tools in Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper Drake) laptops that PalmSource provided for the event. The simulator is running ALP in User Mode Linux, a way to run a Linux system virtualized within another: http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net/
David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog
RE: ALP-OS doesn't have a snowball's chance of surviving.
Sorry, Beersy but I'm not buying it.
Now there's a surprise Mr Doom & Gloom.
How can you possibly weave a negative spin out of such a promising report? Mr Beers is not trying to sell you anything, he's just providing his feedback on a key event that a great many people here are interested in reading about.
Whilst PalmSource/Access still have a lot of individual elements to work on to make this OS a success, I'd have thought you'd be glad to see signs that we might have an alternative future OS option that doesn't involve feeding revenue through to Billy-Bob Gates.
KultiVator
p.s. David Beers: Good article - thanks for taking the time to provide commentary.
RE: ALP-OS doesn't have a snowball's chance of surviving.
It irritates me still that Palm haven't commented on ALP. Dammit, how much could it really hurt them to just tell us which way they're planning to jump?
Tim
I apologise for any and all emoticons that appear in my posts. You may shoot them on sight.
Treo 270 ---> Treo 650
RE: ALP-OS doesn't have a snowball's chance of surviving.
It irritates me still that Palm haven't commented on ALP.
Yeah - I think they're too busy playing the corporate game of maintaining share-price, playing tough, sitting on the fence when perhaps it'd be a better strategy to show some leadership and give us tech-fans something to get excited about.
Realistically though, are Palm dynamic enough to take ALP and really run with it? Perhaps they are now too reliant on WinMob for their Treo offering to make a move to something better - or at least wish to appear that way in order to secure the lowest possible price for their ALP license!?! Who knows?
One thing's for sure, it'll be a sad day if the only ALP handsets available in the West are from unknown Chinese manufacturers (but it could be argued that's what we've been buying from Palm since at least the days of the original Tungsten|T).
So, perhaps we might see release hardware by 3rd quarter 2007?
KultiVator
RE: ALP-OS doesn't have a snowball's chance of surviving.
RE: ALP-OS doesn't have a snowball's chance of surviving.
The PalmOS wasn't good enough for Palm, the blame lays firmly with Palmsource for not offering a compelling enough product. It doesn't even matter why Palm and other licencees were less than thrilled by Cobalt, what matters is that PalmSource's Cobalt failed to meet the needs of ANY and ALL PalmOS licencees.
Blaming Palm for the death of Palm OS is like the local baker blaming his business failure on his customers no longer buying his bread, yet "neglects" to mention it was because he tried to make a quick buck by switching to a new recipe of mouldy, overpriced bread.
To date,
NOT ONE SINGLE COMPANY HAS BOUGHT A SLICE OF COBALT BREAD.
That Cobalt loaf has been sitting on the shelf for a good two years and nobody, not Palm, Sony, Acer, Garmin, HP, Motorola etc have picked it up.
If Cobalt was the most fundamental change in computing since the introduction of Visicalc then companies would have been queuing round the block to get a slice of Cobalt.
Now it's not even worth feeding to the ducks - you'd be arrested on charges of animal cruelty.
Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital. Aaron Levenstein
RE: ALP-OS doesn't have a snowball's chance of surviving.
The decision was up to Palm, not PalmSource. After all, nobody's knocking down your door to force you into upgrading your 286 EGA PC to a Dual Core Xeon machine.
Whether it was a wise move for Palm is another matter - a matter for the Palm directors and their shareholders to resolve. Again, customers aren't forced into buying what Palm has to offer. The custom will come for the right products at the right price. This is something the Palm directors have to focus on.
Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital. Aaron Levenstein
RE: ALP-OS doesn't have a snowball's chance of surviving.
JLM.
RE: ALP-OS doesn't have a snowball's chance of surviving.
JLM.
Be my guest. Hope you don't mind if I launch you into orbit by just breaking my foot off in your a$$ instead of sending you a one way ticket into outer space on the Shuttle. Next stop: Clue Planet™. Get on board, JLM.
By the way, it's time for you to start helping (the flailing) Beersy out by doing some Palm Apologizing for your masters here:
http://www.palminfocenter.com/comments/8901/#124585
TVoR
ALP looking good
I describe some of my experiences at my blog, http://dkirker-wapuniverse.blogspot.com/ (I apologize for the crummy pictures, I wasn't too sure if I was allowed to do them and I didn't have time to make them perfect), but I will add to them here.
ALP is the only mobile Linux platform (on cellular handsets) that offers more than one executable option to the user (generally the only option is Java). ALP offers as David said: PalmOS Garnet, GTK, MAX, and Java applications. GTK and MAX kind of go hand-in-hand. There is an option that allows the developer to skin his or her application, which makes it look 1000000 times better. Native linux apps run on top of a mini X Windows system. In the past people had complained that this would be slow, but I only noticed a .5 to 1 second delay when launching (the X Windows cross-hatch patter was displayed, but that will probably change in the release version). The delay will probably drop by the time of the release.
At the PalmSource booth, one of the demoers had Bejeweled loaded on one of the phones. In the black space that David was describing there was a small DIA with home, menu, full screen, etc. buttons reminiscent of the latest PalmOS Garnet Simulator. Bejeweled seemed to run with no slowups. Bill Lee did say though that when running ALP over UML developers will notice lower than normal performance with ARM applications because UML actually emulates the ARM code, which tends to be heavy.
Remember, any current comments about ALP right now reflect a pre-pre-production state. ALP will get much better in time.
I also held a discussion with Bill Lee and this other PalmSource employee about multi-tasking. Their comments were as David said, it will be up to the developer. I had made some suggestions though about possibly allowing an option for the user that would allow him/her to choose a multi-task approach or a Palm launch style approach (close current app when launching a new). I also suggested using a taskbar like what QT uses (displays icons in the taskbar) or like what Palm does, a drop down that displays active applications (as opposed to recent apps, or maybe both). I was told that they would take this back to their engineers.
All-in-all ALP looked very very promising. I think that ALP will have a pretty successful future. There will definitely be more improvements in it between now and release (no time frame, but Bill thought January to February or March of next year looked about right).
Also, as a little comparison for those who have tried out the Linux ports that the Hack&Dev community has worked on. ALP was much faster than these ports.
I expect great things to come from ACCESS PalmSource. ALP is far away from being dead or vaporware like Cobalt was (RIP Cobalt, Long Live ALP).
-Donald C. Kirker
RE: ALP looking good
If Palm doesn't adopt it, screw them, I'll go elsewhere. I know they won't make anything better, as they've never done anything but ruin the software they've taken over.
Font Support?
Are you able to comment on font support in ALP - specifically on whether scalable (vector) fonts are likely to be directly supported?
Cheers,
KultiVator
RE: Font Support?
RE: Font Support?
RE: Font Support?
One thing I should mention is that scalable vector graphics are very processer-intensive things to render. I would expect (in fact it was even hinted to me) that a lot of stuff would be somehow pre-rendered to avoid a performance hit. If that's true we shouldn't be expecting stock ALP devices to have Mac OSX-style dynamic scaling of fonts and graphics (i.e. smooth growing and shrinking based on stylus movements).
David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog
RE: Font Support?
Also, while I'm all in favor of having nice app frameworks (MAX, J2ME), I hope that PalmSource keeps true to it's DIY roots and doesn't discourage this sort of thing.
ALP = looming Palm OS disaster
This is not Palm OS on top of a new kernel. It is a new OS that has a Palm OS emulator; and only 68K emulation to boot (and only for WELL BEHAVED PROGRAMS!). If I wanted a Palm OS EMULATOR, I would buy a PPC with the StyleTap Palm OS emulator!
Bring back Cobalt. I am not spending a second more even thinking about ALP, this is trash, it is not Palm OS, it will spell the death of Palm OS. No go. Either it goes, or I go to WM.
RE: ALP = looming Palm OS disaster
This is not Linux, so don't let anyone be fooled by the "free" aura of the Linux name. There is nothing Linux about this crap. It does not run Linux programs, and for the end users, they are paying for the OS when they purchase a new device.
So what the hell? If you are going to pay for a multitasking OS, why not go for WM? At least IT has a based of tens of thousands of established programs. ALP does not tap into the Palm OS software base, it cripples it.
*** MARK MY WORDS HERE TODAY PEOPLE ***
ALP will destroy the Palm OS economy. If you are a developer who makes $$$ from selling Palm OS programs, you better have WM versions ready soon because ALP will a) present programming challenges and new costs and b) no one will buy those programs.
You can't build a whole brand new generation of ALP programs overnight. Who the hell is buying this bs?
Consumers will go with WM and those who desperately need a given Palm OS program, they will run it in StyleTap.
RE: ALP = looming Palm OS disaster
Guys, go apply for a job at Palm Inc ASAP, while you still have time. I can't believe Palm Inc. is going to buy this. They got to be making their own OS. They might still be needing programmers in the near future.
RE: ALP = looming Palm OS disaster
Anyways, I am confident Colligan is not a total retard; the man is after all one of the famous founders of Palm OS, he has got to have SOME brains. Colligan surely can see this will never fly with the Palm OS community. He better have plans to make a TX with WM and/or plans to make a PALM OS ON A WHATEVER KERNAL, not a new OS with a Palm OS emulator.
He has to find a way to get OS 5 and / or OS 6 full property rights away from Access; he just has to.
RE: ALP = looming Palm OS disaster
Read the article again, Mr Beers indicates that current arm appls are handled by the emulation (so not just the legacy 68k apps you mention).
The fact that BeJewelled is running without noticeable slow-down is a pretty good testament to the quality of the emulation - IN THIS PRE-ALPHA OS!
Nuff said.
KultiVator
RE: ALP = looming Palm OS disaster
RE: ALP = looming Palm OS disaster
This is not Palm OS on top of a new kernel. It is a new OS that has a Palm OS emulator; and only 68K emulation to boot (and only for WELL BEHAVED PROGRAMS!). If I wanted a Palm OS EMULATOR, I would buy a PPC with the StyleTap Palm OS emulator!
Bring back Cobalt.
Actually, Palm OS has been emulated ever since the first ARM device was released many years ago and it's emulated on Cobalt, too. There are some technical differences, but none that have a major impact on users, unless the developer has been using undocumented, unsupported APIs that PalmSource has said for years could change at any time.
I actually heard things at the conference that led me to believe that Palm OS may even be somewhat enhanced by running in ALP. One engineer I spoke with hinted that the Palm OS isn't completely sandboxed within the emulator--that it could access certain resources outside it. Don't know what those resources might be but lets just take a simple example: the file system. If the Palm OS virtual file system can access the same file system that the Linux apps are using, that could open up some interesting ways to extend Palm OS applications by leveraging Linux services running in another process. Imagine a Linux daemon that periodically fetches RSS updates, email, or GPS position data in the background and saves it to a file that a Garnet application can use. This could drastically improve the perceived performance of Palm OS applications that use such data since most of the heavy lifting could be done before the Palm OS application even launches. Not saying I know for sure this is possible, but I got the impression it might be.
David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog
RE: ALP = looming Palm OS disaster
It's not giving the old app multi-threading, but it certainly would take care of one of the major reasons for wanting threads in the old OS, IMHO.
Using Linux to beef up Garnet's capabilities
Another way of looking at it, yes. Underneath the emulation layer I'm sure those DM read, query, and write calls are proxying down into the Linux file system (probably to SQLite). At that point it becomes a matter of security configuration whether non-Palm OS applications can read or modify this data.
It's not giving the old app multi-threading, but it certainly would take care of one of the major reasons for wanting threads in the old OS, IMHO.
Exactly. Not all of the major reasons, but one significant one. Of course the code that operates on this data in a background thread is going to be Linux code. But since ALP can run Linux daemons it's possible that there will be background services available (even in ROM) that would be of interest to Palm developers. This is all very speculative, of course, and there's a real question about how much ACCESS really wants to make this possible rather than nudging Palm developers more firmly over to MAX for these benefits. It's just interesting to think about.
David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog
RE: ALP = looming Palm OS disaster
If you take the time to read one of ACCESS PalmSource's whitepapers, specifically "Making Linux Mobile, The ACCESS Linux Platform" under the section titled"The Access Linux Platform" you will realize that Linux is the underlaying technology.
Also, as David said, PalmOS apps have been emulated in PalmOS 5 and 6. The only thing that is not emulated is the ARM code. Why, because, the processor is ARM based. Mark my word, any PalmOS app that worked in PalmOS 5.4 will work on ALP. This is because GHost is PalmOS 5.4 (Garnet).
I am sorry if you don't see any future in ALP, but from what I took away from this conference, ALP's future is very bright.
RE: ALP = looming Palm OS disaster
RE: ALP = looming Palm OS disaster
Bill showed me a demo on how simple it is to make a Linux app work with ALP and how to alternate between the themed version and GTK version of the app (when compiling).
The app he used was gworldclock, Google it. He first showed me how it ran on Ubuntu (little Ubuntu page on gworldclock: http://packages.ubuntulinux.org/warty/utils/gworldclock) and then did a quick recompile with a little xml file (defines theme, app name, essentially probably just creates a small database file that ALP uses for the launcher) and had gworldclock running in ALP in seconds. Gworldclock by the way is a desktop app. So, it really depends. You can get some Linux desktop apps to run in ALP. Mainly the issue is with the interface. Most desktop apps (well take Konquerer) have to be recompiled for the mobile device because they need to be redesigned for smaller devices.
Anyway, there is an app base. 3-4 bases to be exact.
-Donald
desktop Linux app migration not a problem
One more example: a lot of my enterprise and government clients have me develop SuperWaba applications for them (like J2ME only much better) and all those apps should be supported very easily on ALP since the SuperWaba VM has already been ported to Linux. SuperWaba enables you to create and use native libraries, so that's going to open up a nice new world for that platform.
David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog
RE: ALP = looming Palm OS disaster
RE: ALP = looming Palm OS disaster
RE: ALP = looming Palm OS disaster
Handera
Remember back in the day when the Handera 330 had a QVGA screen and the arguements went back and forth about the "best" screen resolution? This just cracks me up. Those Handera people got a lot of things right.
Nice report David.
It might not be the "mythical color HandEra", but I'm liking my TX anyway.
Too Little, Too Late
This is a marathon race and WINMOB is about to cross the finish line and ALPO is still sitting on the couch eating potato chips.
RE: Too Little, Too Late
Right now Access is trying to save PalmOS, while Palm is trying to kill it. I'm very happy with this performance of an Alfa release. I'll buy a chinese handset if I have to.
Screw Palm. They can go destroy WINMOB.
RE: Too Little, Too Late
This isn't a winner-takes-all race, and no single platform is destined to achieve total supremacy. So nobody is going to be crossing any finish line here, because there isn't one to reach.
Access's conundrum lies in the fact that Symbian and Windows Mobile are the established players in this game (as is Linux, but on a completely different scale) and are already well on their way enjoying greater adoption and market penetration while ALP isn't even in the race yet. Given the platform's roadmap, it will be at least another year beyond release (providing Access ships this OS in Q4 as promised) before ALP even appears on hardware. We may not even see an ALP-based smartphone until 2008. Just that reality is bad enough, but it gets worse...
The next trick will be to convert all those "thousands" of PalmOS developers PalmSource claims to be sitting on into ALP devs. It's not a foregone conclusion that developers will even embrace ALP. Many could simply stick with what they already know (Garnet), leaving ALP to inherit a library of elderly legacy applications with few native MAX apps of its own.
Seducing developers into learning and adopting this new platform may prove to be an uphill battle as the majority of what were once strictly Palm developers are already now writing code for Windows Mobile and Symbian as well. If Palm thumbs its nose at ALP, choosing instead to limp along with Garnet, you can forget about ALP becoming the successor to the PalmOS platform.
Some may see this upheaval as the appropriate time reevaluate their own product roadmaps and cast their lot with WM and Symbian, cutting the cord with PalmSource.
Will that happen? Who knows. It's impossible to know how the chips will fall until ALP actually hits the market, and we can gauge developer and vendor reaction.
-------------------------------
PocketFactory, www.pocketfactory.com
Elitist Snob, www.elitistsnob.com
RE: Too Little, Too Late
It seems pretty apparent that Microsoft doesn't need their help - they seem to be doing just fine making it an awful OS without anyone else's assistance.
RE: Too Little, Too Late
>This isn't a winner-takes-all race, and no single platform is destined to achieve total supremacy. So nobody is going to be crossing any finish line here, because there isn't one to reach.
I disagree. I say MSFT will win this race and have total supremacy just like they have done with PCs.
RE: never too Late
This race is all about what existing OS will do what?
To have any value there first must be a purpose. Removing the roof of a car to simply call it a convertible is poor planning. Engineering must go into offering choices logically and safely. US$222 billion in outstanding capital do to security issues is not a good repeat.
Currently there is no public we-com industry to trade thoughts, hence no pool of capital to draw yet. FIs want to contribute to anything that securely enhances their network, as their network is the customer and shareholder.
The most we can assure is that a we-com virtual wallet will interact with all digital choices based on consumer choices. This choice will enhance the network, customer and shareholder ... win-win.
E-T
e-tellurian
Completing the e-com circle with a people driven we-com solution
WiFi & BT? No strings attached
we_tellurian@canada.com
Time to open a can of WHOOPA$$ on e.t.
Don't ever change, babe.
Love,
TVoR
RE: Never too Late
Just offering change in a digital form too. A we-com virtual wallet will need/want its own space. Working with others is mandatory, it's just that what we are offering must be built from the ground up to avoid US$222 billion in security issues. This is an incredible sum. To some nations this is their entire GDP for a whole year.
Does anyone here know the true cost of $1? Next time you shake hands look at the scars and ask what each drop of blood was worth. Some people start working with their hands to build a place for us to work. Their hard earned capital deserves respect too ... they are customers just like any other.
E-T
e-tellurian
Completing the e-com circle with a people driven we-com solution
WiFi & BT? No strings attached
we_tellurian@canada.com
RE: Too Much, Too Early. Dripping with excitement.
And to Beersy it's the sum he spends on flannel lumberjack shirts in a year.
The me-com solution for Palm completes the circle (jerk) with a daisy chain for Satan.
TVoe-com
RE: Never too Late
Palm, a PDA could assist with accounting issues. If my accountant has a Palm then with my, yet to b built wallet, while having a scrumptious lunch transfer via RF, information for said accountant to file. Paying taxes is good, and when so easy why not over a tax deductibles lunch.
Naturally the lunch would be paid with my we-com virtual wallet.
E-T
e-tellurian
Completing the e-com circle with a people driven we-com solution
WiFi & BT? No strings attached
we_tellurian@canada.com
e.t.: fast forward yourself from 1999
TVoR's e-com vision is the SmartCard (which is to an ATM card what a smartphone is to a featurephone). New, much more secured RFID or Bluetoothed credit card sized debit cards with flexible screens, fingerprint scanner authorization and Wi-Fi connectivity to online banking.
Consumers will carry a cellphone or a credit card, but e-com will fail if a new device is needed to complete the circle. Do you grok that, e.t.?
TVoR
RE: Too Little, Too Late
Tim
I apologise for any and all emoticons that appear in my posts. You may shoot them on sight.
Treo 270 ---> Treo 650
OT: Too Little, Too Late
I'm all for convenience, but sometimes security is more desirable.
Tim
I apologise for any and all emoticons that appear in my posts. You may shoot them on sight.
Treo 270 ---> Treo 650
RE: Too Little, Too Late
All right, I'll admit it: I actually had to use Babelfish to decode his alien trilling:
http://babelfish.altavista.com/
Choose "Alien to English translation" from the dropdown menu.
OT: Also, smartcards are a terrible idea. Currently the only way for someone to steal your information off your ATM cards is to use a mag-stripe reader. Wireless smartcards open up a whole new world of possibilities for smart thieves.
I'm all for convenience, but sometimes security is more desirable.
I don't think you realize that we already have essentially no security.
- Resistance to hacking
- Avoidance of realtime trackability
- Convenience
Pick any 2
TVoR
RE:Never too Late
A prototype will need to be built, with 1999 thoughts to present. We are talking of offering an interactive choice not the choice. I think our offering is rock solid, or would not still be here. Let the customer decide what they want based on the choices provided.
Our commitment is 0 losses. With our entire package we will have complete sustainability.
I would really like to see all from 1999 to present take part in the final sharing of wealth. The a in agreed is priceless.
E-T
e-tellurian
Completing the e-com circle with a people driven we-com solution
WiFi & BT? No strings attached
we_tellurian@canada.com
RE: Too Little, Too Late
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PocketFactory, www.pocketfactory.com
Elitist Snob, www.elitistsnob.com
RE: Too Little
True people's choices can be painful so too can the consequences. My choice to help build a we-com industry as a way to share all intellectual thoughts associated with this initiative has been challenging.
Some cultures that prefer paper will not like our offering. The reality is that their choices are not being compromised ours are. Advanced economies have the right to grow too.
I did not authorize the publication of the terminology. The correct term is:
Tellurian Latin for person from earth combined with E which = electronic/electric combined = electronic earth person. A fun word to describe what John Nielsen does. Anyone can use this term we just created it as a descriptive term. Our crew has come up with many new terms to describe our work.
Thanks for your time and thought,
Sincerely,
E-T
e-tellurian
Completing the e-com circle with a people driven we-com solution
WiFi & BT? No strings attached
we_tellurian@canada.com
RE: Too Little, Too Late
That brief sentence fragment is the only comprehensible thing you've posted here.
-------------------------------
PocketFactory, www.pocketfactory.com
Elitist Snob, www.elitistsnob.com
Two questions (and pictures)
I have two questions.
Did PalmSource hint at any source code migration tool for Palm source code to GTK+ or MAX ?
Was anyone from Palm around?
Pictures: Palmsource has put up a page with a bunch of pictures. Most of them not really exciting, but in a couple the emulator David mentioned is visible.
(that vespa really looks great!)
--------------------------
Hey Admin: Why do we have to keep two profiles?
RE: Two questions (and pictures)
Did PalmSource hint at any source code migration tool for Palm source code to GTK+ or MAX ?
No, they didn't. I'm not sure that this would really be practical. Or that a Palm developer would want to use it if they did. If you went to the trouble to produce a tool like that the code that it would produce would most likely be very difficult to understand and maintain. My guess is you'd be better off porting it by hand than trying to sort out machine-generated C code. It shouldn't be that hard and you'd surely find things along the way that you could do a lot better than a naive migration tool would.
Was anyone from Palm around?
Hard to say. There were crowds everywhere, including in the Developer Day sessions. I didn't see anyone I knew, but I don't know that many people at Palm.
David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog
RE: Two questions (and pictures)
On the other hand we may see a "new generation" of Linux developers coming to a mobile platform.
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Hey Admin: Why do we have to keep two profiles?
ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP
>This is an idiotic thread. Access demoes almost flawless emulation >on an Alpha release that no one expected to see anything of for 6 >more months, and you're complaining? What would you rather have? >Frankengarnet version 5.9.999.999.999a?
:(
I want Cobalt. It is a brand new Palm OS built the ground up. Made for multitasking and multimedia. The Palm OS 6 emulator runs very well and I do not see why it was not used. If I recall, PalmSource wanted to sell it but Palm Inc refused for yet undisclosed reasons other than perhaps the stated need to have faster "time to market", "faster releases" (hahahahahaha - look what we got instead), "lower R&D costs" and "free drivers from Linux people".
It is crystal clear in my mind that a given handheld can only thrive if it becomes a multimedia centric device that just so happens to have a great PIM. Handhelds needs to differenciate from Treo in that way.
- Cobalt or other is needed. Full 100% full speed full performance, in fact, IMPROVED performance for ALL OS 4 and 5 existing programs. Not some lame ass emulator that YAY plays Bejeweled at "what appears to be good speed". There are apps out there right now that have barely enough juice as it is, we don't need some dumb emulator in/out of sandbox cockamania thing that may/may not work on conjunction with super duper optimized pseudo/or not Linux routines. ENOUGH ALREADY! GIVE US A FRICKEN PALM OS with 110% speed/compatibility and get back to work on hardware designs and improving the multimedia software base.
- OLED screens (or other variant -- ONLY the ones offering 180 degree viewing angles also (absolutely CRITICAL to success).
Without OLED, there will never be a serious mobile multimedia market. Don't believe me? Go play a movie right now on any PPC or Palm. Don't lie, tell us how you have to hold the screen at a very precise angle and not move it for free of distorting/messing up what you can see. There are no true blacks on TFT, only on OLED. No wonder no one can justify the purchase of a 300$ USD Palm (even if that is cheap compared to the past). You can't even enjoy that big 480x320 screen properly; be it for pictures or movies. Am I the only one on this godamn planet that understands this?
Anyways, to all the people involved in ALP, I wish you all the best of luck, bla bla bla bla, etc.
You actually *don't* want Palm OS Cobalt
I want Cobalt.
Actually, I don't think you do.
I got some more information about why Cobalt was a problem while talking to the PalmSource people last week. The driver issue has been known for a long time to have been an obstacle--it added a huge amount of time and trouble for licensees to create new Cobalt devices. PalmSource simply didn't have the personnel to support an "a brand new Palm OS built from the ground up". A related problem was that PalmSource never succeeded in getting on-device debugging to work for Palm OS Cobalt--you could only debug in the simulator, which is never quite good enough to catch and fix a lot of bugs.
A lot of developers were worried when they realized that PalmSource was having to create their own compilers and debuggers for Cobalt--a difficult and resource-consuming task that was far afield from their proven expertise. If something like Cobalt was going to be possible for such a small company (and ALP definitely falls into the "something like Cobalt" category) PalmSource was only going to succeed by focusing on the things they do best and off-loading stuff like compilers and debuggers to the open source community. Mind you, it looks like PalmSource has been making some solid contributions to open source: to GTK, to SQLite, to interprocess communication architecture (Binder), for example. But there were perfectly good, mature wheels that they could use for ALP that had to be reinvented from scratch for Cobalt. They're benefiting a lot from that now, and that benefit will redound to end users.
PalmSource is probably lucky that Cobalt didn't get picked up by Palm. It would have been a terrible yoke around their neck and would have kept them from devoting the resources they needed to deploy to keep the Palm OS competitive with Windows Mobile and Symbian. ALP has most of what people wanted from Cobalt anyway and is going to be a much easier platform for PalmSource and its licensees and developers to innovate on. Trust me on this: it's a good thing your Cobalt prayer was not answered.
David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog
RE: ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP
Doing things on the cheap by offloading to the Linux community does not seem to be a good move.
If Palm Inc. cannot offer upgrades to an established OS that they invented and maintained for over 10 years, then perhaps they should no longer be in the business. I refuse to believe that however.
I am a Palm OS fan, of a solely Palm OS centric OS on a kernal built for and optimized for Palm OS; not an emulator.
Anyways, whatever happens, happens. All I know is that as a consumer, I need the Palm OS PIM, I need the TX design with some additions, a multitasking OS, an OLED class screen, full compatibility with all my freeware and commercial Palm OS programs and a new focus on enhanced software and hardware for multimedia (movies, pictures, games, music).
RE: ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP
Agee with you on the OLED front and on the importance of handhelds needing to be good all-round media devices. Media - fun = sales if done correctly. People will pay good dollars for excellent playback quality - but are loathed to pay a premium for basic PIM features.
I still differ with your comments on the OS side of things. Access are opening up a lot of different avenues for lots of different types of developers on ALP. The Linux-heads can go for GTK+ or MAX. Palm developers can carry on with Garnet or migrate to MAX. Java developers have a VM to target, etc, etc.
MAX & GTK+ developers are going to have a lot of scope to target the high-performance end of the market, since no emulation layer comes into play.
It seems that the argument here in PIC is a moving target... first everyone wants a new OS that excels at everything including multi-tasking. PalmSource go ahead and develop a platform capable of this and much more, whilst building in various different sub-platforms and development routes - but now the PIC masses dont want the new platform, they want something less radical?
In England we have a very apt saying... "there's nowt stranger than folk."
KultiVator
RE: ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP
PalmOS 6 looks great, but under the hood it has problems that weaken it.
With ALP you are not getting an "emulator." PalmOS apps written in 68k HAVE ALWAYS BEEN EMULATED since PalmOS 5. ARM code IS NOT EMULATED (no, I am not yelling, I am just emphasizing). Even in PalmOS 6 you are still getting emulation.
As I said, read some of the whitepapers and look at the ALP structure. The 68k emulator (as it has been since PalmOS 5.0 on the Tungsten T) sits on top of the GTK lay which sits directly on top of the hardware accelerator. This sits on top of the kernel which has direct hardware access. To break it down even more:
Assembly calls written in m68k machine language are emulated so that the underlying ARM process can properly handle them. ARM is not. Calls to PalmOS functions appear to be routed to GTK, so that it reduces the number of GUI frameworks. This is the reason why Bejewled was running as fast as it would on ALP as it does on my Treo 700p. Now, bring in the PalmOS Garnet simulator. Things slow down here. The same with UML, which is essentially the Emulator for ALP. So yes, on UML things are emulated, but the end user will never see UML because it is a developer tool.
Look at it this way. GHost = Garnet Host. It is a host, not an emulator, that allows Palm apps to run.
And, there is nothing wrong abut open source. If anything it will benefit the process. And, if Palm bought anything, it would probably be Garnet, not Cobalt.
-Donald
RE: ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP
PSRC didn't need to develop their own compilers for Cobalt, and by the time I'd gotten there had long since gone back to using commercial compilers.
Similarly, by the time I was working on filesystems for Cobalt, we were debugging on-device and not just in the simulator. The device in question was a TI reference board, but was very suitable.
On the other hand, performance on the reference board was very slow, but there had been no effort to improve performance and we always run with all the debuging turned on.
May You Live in Interesting Times
RE: ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP
Similarly, by the time I was working on filesystems for Cobalt, we were debugging on-device and not just in the simulator.
Ok, perhaps "not possible" was too strong. Maybe "not shippable" would be more accurate. As I heard it (assuming I heard right) you *could* debug on the device, but the debugger produced output that was painful to interpret. For example, in the variables view your application variables were jumbled together with all kinds of other cruft from the system that didn't give you much insight. Suffice it to say there were words of admiration spoken for what Metrowerks was able to do by comparison.
Interesting that PalmSource actually switched to commercial compilers. If they could use commercial compilers for Cobalt why on earth weren't they doing so from the start?
David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog
More B.S. from Beersy
Beersy, how much is Access paying you to spread B.S. like this? I used to think you were just a naive Palm cheerleader, but now I see that the tales you SPIN are conceived to do damage control for your PalmSource masters. Good biotch. Sit...
TVoR
RE: ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP
.....
What is the point? What exactly is your point besides hanging out here and bugging the hell out of the Palm community that does not want to see it denigrate up into flames like you would like to see it? Do you even own a PalmOS PDA or smartphone? Do you even know what process it takes to build an operating system, let alone an application? Or do you just like to make up stupid comments and call names at the people that try to bring good news?
Everytime something good is announced/rumoured, you and the other PIC pessimists seem to popup and seem to cr*p on the party. Do you, and the others, have an issue with the advance of technology? 'Cause you know, if you'd like, I have a pile of rocks out back that you can bang together.
-Donald
RE: ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP
Are you talkin' to ME?
.....
What is the point? What exactly is your point besides hanging out here and bugging the hell out of the Palm community that does not want to see it denigrate up into flames like you would like to see it? Do you even own a PalmOS PDA or smartphone? Do you even know what process it takes to build an operating system, let alone an application? Or do you just like to make up stupid comments and call names at the people that try to bring good news?
Whoa, Donnie-boy. If you want to get into a pi$$ing contest, you just picked the wrong person.
I've been using PalmOS devices since they first came out and have a personal collection of a few dozen PDAs. I currently use a Samsung i500, CLIE UX50, CLIE VZ90, CLIE TH55, Zodiac 2 and Treo 700p (which just crashed 2 minutes ago as I pressed the button to answer a call - thanks, Palm!). Over the years I've helped market a few of the most popular apps ever used on the PalmOS platform. I've also been directly responsible for the sale of more Palms than you'll ever see in your lifetime.
My Palm-related articles have been widely read for years (under my nom de plume). But I have a distinct distaste for B.S. Any of the regulars here can tell you that I will skewer any SPIN doctor or B.S. artiste hoping to pull the wool over the eyes of the Palm Faithful. It makes me ill seeing people like Michael Mace, etc spouting absurd B.S. thinking the Palm Faithful are too dumb to realize The Truth. I'm one of the few pundits who can be trusted to call a spade a spade. Don't believe me? Frankly, I don't give a shi*.
Everytime something good is announced/rumoured, you and the other PIC pessimists seem to popup and seem to cr*p on the party. Do you, and the others, have an issue with the advance of technology? 'Cause you know, if you'd like, I have a pile of rocks out back that you can bang together.
-Donald
I'd suggest you look at the "pessimistic" things that I've said in the past about:
- Springboards
- SD expansion modules
- Memory Stick
- Palm's quality control issues
- The viability of Tapwave's business model
- Palm's financial nightmares
- The viability of PalmSource's business model
- NVRAM
- The lovely relationships between ex-Be and ex-Palm employees at PalmSource
- The m505
- The Palm name "sale"
- The so-called Palm "split"
- The Treo 600 "issues"
- The Palm T5 "issues"
- The viability and release schedule of Cobalt
- The viability and release schedule of PalmLinux
- etc., etc.
Sorry Bubba, but my record is impeccable. If I say something is crap, IT IS CRAP. Period. When Palm, PalmSource, etc start doing something worth praising, I'll be the first one congratulating them. Until then (never) I'm gonna keep telling it like it is - whether you or any dumba$$ Palm employees don't like it. Like Mike Cane used to say, it's time for the Palm companies to start "delighting the customer" again.
BTW, if you want to argue something, why don't you do it in a grown up manner like everybody else has, instead of insulting people, because, you're kinda of acting like a spoiled 5 year old brat.
If you take my writing style seriously you must have the mentality of said "5 year old brat". Have a seat, Bubba.
TVoR
[The REAL deal™]
RE: ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP
I can be full of a lot of pi$$ too.
I've been using PalmOS devices since they first came out and have a personal collection of a few dozen PDAs. I currently use a Samsung i500, CLIE UX50, CLIE VZ90, CLIE TH55, Zodiac 2 and Treo 700p (which just crashed 2 minutes ago as I pressed the button to answer a call - thanks, Palm!). Over the years I've helped market a few of the most popular apps ever used on the PalmOS platform. I've also been directly responsible for the sale of more Palms than you'll ever see in your lifetime.
Hmm, the only reason my Treo 700p reset today (last reset was the 12th, my TX had more frequent resets). Anyway, the reset was because I was using a hack, but anyway, I doubt that you have any hacks and that isn't what this convo is about. I don't say that FrankenGarnet isn't buggy, but I think it was because Palm wouldn't back it with hardware.
My Palm-related articles have been widely read for years (under my nom de plume). But I have a distinct distaste for B.S. Any of the regulars here can tell you that I will skewer any SPIN doctor or B.S. artiste hoping to pull the wool over the eyes of the Palm Faithful. It makes me ill seeing people like Michael Mace, etc spouting absurd B.S. thinking the Palm Faithful are too dumb to realize The Truth. I'm one of the few pundits who can be trusted to call a spade a spade. Don't believe me? Frankly, I don't give a shi*.
I am glad that you don't take BS. Quite frankly I don't like it either. What I also don't like is people that have to resort to name calling and insulting in order to refute this BS and get their point out. Why can't you guys say something like: "Hey guys, remember what happened with Cobalt? Remember how it was touted with state-of-the-art features? Remember how it failed miserably? It was only on one smartphone that never entered to production state.." instead of "Sorry, Beersy but I'm not buying it. Access has a kludge of an OS and has effectively chopped the testicles off the PalmOS platform." ? A little more civilized. Than we can hold a conversation about why we think ALP will or will not be successful.
I'd suggest you look at the "pessimistic" things that I've said in the past about:
- Springboards
- SD expansion modules
- Memory Stick
- Palm's quality control issues
- The viability of Tapwave's business model
- Palm's financial nightmares
- The viability of PalmSource's business model
- NVRAM
- The lovely relationships between ex-Be and ex-Palm employees at PalmSource
- The m505
- The Palm name "sale"
- The so-called Palm "split"
- The Treo 600 "issues"
- The Palm T5 "issues"
- The viability and release schedule of Cobalt
- The viability and release schedule of PalmLinux
- etc., etc.
I don't disagree about these issues (the NVFS issue was IMO because Palm couldn't back their FrankenGarnet with the hardware) and their failures. What I don't like is the immediate pessimistic attitude that you bring. Immediately when something is rumored/released you jump on it and say that it will be a failure (please prove me wrong with some links).
Sorry Bubba, but my record is impeccable. If I say something is crap, IT IS CRAP. Period. When Palm, PalmSource, etc start doing something worth praising, I'll be the first one congratulating them. Until then (never) I'm gonna keep telling it like it is - whether you or any dumba$$ Palm employees don't like it. Like Mike Cane used to say, it's time for the Palm companies to start "delighting the customer" again.
I think PalmSource might be turning the tables, at least based on my interaction with the PalmSource reps at LinuxWorld. But, it is too early to say *either way* (that means it is too early to say that they are doing a good or bad job). I give PalmSource 5 to 6 months to produce an next-gen OS and another few months for it to appear on a device. If we don't start hearing about companies embracing ALP by, say, maybe December, then red flags should be raised.
If you take my writing style seriously you must have the mentality of said "5 year old brat". Have a seat, Bubba.
TVoR
[The REAL deal™]
I don't take your writing style seriously, and because of that I immediately drop any validity of the content (beyond the cr*p flinging). If you took out all of the insults, the name calling and the other "filler" I'd find your stuff very interesting. I'd find it for a good debate. But it is this "filler" really degrades the quality of your comments/writings, IMO. I think it is the things like "Have a seat, Bubba." that make you appear to be this 5 year old.
Beyond the cr*p, I agree, Palm and PalmSource are going downhill. IMO, PalmSource appears to be slowing turning around. I am not going to stand behind them 100%, yet, but I am more behind them now than I was 4 months ago. Palm, I am still iffy about. I am impressed with how much more stable my Treo 700p is compared to my TX, but I am a bit bugged that they are not doing a thing about the lack of WiFi. At least get the d**n card to work. The PalmSG/PalmSource name split was not too horrible, IMO, but I think that the biggest joke was the Palm->palmOne->Palm transition. Why break a well known brand... So yes, I agree on somethings, but I would agree, or at least listen, more without the "attention getter" that is usually used by said "5 year old."
I do find your trademarks amusing :)
RE: ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP
So, yeah... Whatever. I wish PalmInfocenter would add an edit option to their comment system.
-Donald
In the study with a tweed jacket sipping cognac smoking a pipe.
Are you a Sunday School teacher, perchance? I'll bet you think vanilla ice cream is walking on the "Wild Side". Guess what, Bubba: Rocky Road kicks vanilla's butt.
This is the Internet - it's no place to act "civilized". Let's keep "civilized" where it belongs: the Middle East, Iraq, Afghanistan, Rwanda...
http://www.cdi.org/issues/wor.html
TVoR
Don't mind VoR
David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog
RE: ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP
David: Nope. I'd probably watch him stumble around and fall on his face. That is why I am done with TVoR. By the way, thanks for the article. One minor thing to add, Bill said that there will be a web browser widget so developer's will be able to put that in their app.
Well, I think that is all of the ALP stuff that I know.
Browser widget!
Outstanding! (Dr. Kamada was not so forthcoming about this when I put the question to him.) This is actually a pretty huge deal. The browser is probably the single most complex piece of software on a phone these days and there's a lot of power that developers can leverage from it--especially from a browser like NetFront.
I was really stretched thin during Developer Day, what with the developer sessions and Kamada interview. As a result I didn't get as much time to chat up the folks in the PalmSource Pavilion as you did, so I really appreciate you sharing this.
David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog
RE: ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP
I really enjoyed the talking with the PalmSource guys. I do wish I could have made it to Dev Day, but I think I gained just as much with the talking as I would have with Dev Day. My only wish is that I could have spent more time with ALP on UML (or that the guy demoing ALP on the phone would have let me play with it).
Now, to see if I can get a hold of Bill and see if their are any leftover ACCESS Linux Platform t-shirts from the conference because the small that I got is, well, too small (should of grabbed an XL even though it would have been too big).
-Donald
RE: ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP
That I can't answer, not having been there when the decision to write their own compilers was made.
If i were to speculate, it would be to take a sea from an inch and scramble the results.
May You Live in Interesting Times
One more thing!
The ALP development environment can be completely sandboxed so that it does not interfere with an existing gcc environment. Remember the problem cygwin users had when they installed PODS? Poof! Old cygwin environment got screwed. Well, sandbox should help with preventing this for existing gcc environments.
Kinda cool.
-Donald
RE: One more thing!
On the other side of the community coin, the critical thing is that ACCESS give as much good code back to Linux as they can right now. That community gives cred to contributors, not users. And those who make important contributions are likely to be the ones that create de facto standards. Those, in turn, have the best chance of becoming the much needed official standards that can stop Linux from fragmenting worthlessly in the mobile space. My great concern is that ACCESS take a strong leadership position in this way. Motorola is the obvious leader right now, but they've spent a lot of time putting their energy into Java as the API for Linux phones, and don't seem to be as far along on the native Linux front, which gives ACCESS an opening. Let's hope their reputation for aggressiveness extends to this area of endeavor.
David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog
RE: ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP
Therein lies a tale. The same sort of "logic" that I suspect was behind PSRC's original decision to build their own Cobalt compilers led to a very "interesting" NIH build system, over my very strong objections and my very strong recommendations of scratchbox as an alternative.
Fortunately, that choice was reversed relatively quickly, it seems.
May You Live in Interesting Times
What? In OUR house?
Reason #23 why Palm/PalmSource was horribly scarred by the contamination with the HoBeEn (Holy Be Engineers) Virus™. Always in search of the Perfect Code "If it wasn't built from scratch then it's just not good enough."
P.S. Aren't the transparency effects in Cobalt KEWL? Yeah, I realize Cobalt runs like a drunken two-legged dog on anything less than 400 MHz, but we spent MONTHS on the transparency issue alone and think its so KEWL that no one will notice all the stuff that's missing. Oh, and we're sorry but we don't yet have a stable, advanced development platform, but I hear CES Dewar, Mike Waldron and the Resco guys worked together, read the Cobalt SDK and were able to code "Hello world" after only 6 months. Don't worry - PDA Toolbox will still work under PACE...
XXOO
- Lead monkey, Cobalt Technical support
RE: ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP
Stadard scalable fonts? Task switching? Copy and Paste with a decent sized buffer? Multi-task (as browsers do when downloading), checking eMail,,,,,
Yep, I'd say you got that right. Much of what was missing in Garnet that made me buy a Toshiba e800 is right there.
RE: ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP
RE: ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP ALP
Nope. In this instance, the Be folk had nothing to do with the choice; and, as far as I know, they had nothing to do with the initial desire to roll a compiler from scratch.
May You Live in Interesting Times
Cobalt speed
Do you think that if Palm Inc. bought Cobalt from Access, could they optimize it enough so that it would be as fast or faster than OS 5 ARM applications?
Cobalt is a 100% arm optimized OS right? You would think programs written for that would be very fast.
Do you think Palm should buy Cobalt at this point?
Is your opnion that ALP will fly or fail?
(Digging up Cobalt's grave: Cobalt is DEAD. Let it Rest In Pieces
Do you think that if Palm Inc. bought Cobalt from Access, could they optimize it enough so that it would be as fast or faster than OS 5 ARM applications?
[Since Marty would be pushing his luck if he answered those questions...]
No. Cobalt is as slow as molasses in January. (Or maple syrup in February, my Fine French Friend.) Bt with current processors, Cobalt can be brute forced into acceptable performance.
Cobalt is a 100% arm optimized OS right?
No. Don't forget the PACE albatross. Ahhhhh... the pain of legacy support...
You would think programs written for that would be very fast.
You would think... but you would be wrong...
Do you think Palm should buy Cobalt at this point?
Palm lacks the time (or resources) to turn Cobalt into a REAL OS. Sony was the only company that could have saved Cobalt and they bailed before the iceberg was hit.
Is your opnion that ALP will fly or fail?
As a smartphone platform it will fail:
- Symbian + Windows Mobile are MATURE products shipping TODAY, Vs. smoke & mirrors-style (Wizard of Oz) ALP-OS vaporOS that MIGHT be available in 2008.
Symbian + Windows Mobile have thousands of available apps and mature developer communities, while ALP-OS has... nothing
As a featurephone platform ALP-OS will fail because it cannot compete with the "free" or nearly free OSes that will be favored by Chinese + other vendors. ALP-OS simply has no raison d'être. A $320+ million dollar white elephant. Sweet!
TVoR
RE: Cobalt speed
I don't know. I wasn't deeply enough involved with Cobalt to understand its performance issues.
Cobalt is a 100% arm optimized OS right? You would think programs written for that would be very fast.
It wasn't yet optimized at all. It was mostly written in C++ with a very small amount of assembler, so how "arm optimized" it would be would depend on how well the compiler could optimize the C++.
Do you think Palm should buy Cobalt at this point?
No.
Is your opnion that ALP will fly or fail?
I think they'll do OK. They have a track record of successfully "reinventing" themselves into new businesses, and they're very aggressive.
I think, however, that they're going to do it by being a linux player in the growing asian market first, and not in the US any time soon.
May You Live in Interesting Times
Gekko and TVoR - Hahaha
One thing that is never new though, is the opinion of these two posters. It just made me chuckle to myself. David Beers writes a very good, clean overview of something positive related to Palm, and the first thing you read is the usual fluff from TVoR and Gekko. And to think there was actually day, when I thought their opinion mattered.
Thanks for the article David.
Hahahaha...
RE: Gekko and TVoR - Hahaha
They're like a couple of clowns... with a VERY predictable & formulaic act!!!
Wish they'd find somewhere else to hang out.
KultiVator
RE: Gekko and TVoR - Hahaha
kids -
1. please don't lump me in with the rambling psychopath.
2. please don't cry and whine like a baby just because I disagree with you.
thank you.
RE: Gekko and TVoR - Hahaha
Approach Palm Infocenter as tabloid journalism. It's the National Enquirer for handhelds and smartphones.
Palm Infocenter will lose its tabloid status when Ryan moderates the vulgarity and vicious writing out of Gekko, TVoR and other people's posts.
RE: Gekko and TVoR - Hahaha
(PIC wouldn't be half the read it is without The Voice. IMO. And that's all I'll say on that, 'cause I remember the last time I got into this argument...)
Oh, and on the topic of inappropriate posts, sorry to dmitrygr for the rather crude flame the other day. Bad day at work. PIC really needs an edit function...
Tim
I apologise for any and all emoticons that appear in my posts. You may shoot them on sight.
Treo 270 ---> Treo 650
RE: Gekko and TVoR - Hahaha
This is not a "public forum, dude." This is Ryan's website. This is Ryan's forum. Ryan chooses who participates and Ryan chooses how to moderate its content.
These posts help define the Palm community. People interested in purchasing Palm products or developing Palm products or investing in PALM discover Palm Infocenter and read its forums to get the pulse of the community.
Do these new people find a community of positive people that engage in civil discussion and debate about their favorite handhelds?
No, they discover the freak show of Gekko and TVoR.
freakout: Please explain how TVoR and Gekko's posts provide a positive representation of the Palm OS community.
RE: Gekko and TVoR - Hahaha
Since when did this become a requirement? I never got the memo. I didn't realize it the underlying purpose of this talkback to provide a positive image of the Palm community.
-------------------------------
PocketFactory, www.pocketfactory.com
Elitist Snob, www.elitistsnob.com
RE: Gekko and TVoR - Hahaha
The best you can do is correct the lies and distortions and ignore all the obscenity, paranoia and delusions of grandeur. Believe me, no one with any sense takes these guys seriously. And relyons is right: this is not a public forum and Ryan can run it any way he chooses. Why Ryan feels that he should be accountable for train wrecks like TVoR when this anonymous poster is not, well, that's something I'll never understand, but it's not my business.
David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog
RE: Gekko and TVoR - Hahaha
Excatly, and his choice seems to be to leave it open to pretty much all comers and all comments. Which makes the place more interesting, IMO.
As David said, people are smart enough to make their own judgements about what they're reading.
Tim
I apologise for any and all emoticons that appear in my posts. You may shoot them on sight.
Treo 270 ---> Treo 650
RE: Gekko and TVoR - Hahaha
David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog
Stick to the FACTS, Beersy. Leave the B.S. in the bedroom...
Actually, most of the people who used to use and actively discuss/advocate for the PalmOS platform have long since given up on Palm/PalmOS - not just Palminfocenter. Your posts are as specious as ever, Beersy.
Hence, PalmInfocenter will probably always miss a lot of valuable perspectives and have less readership than it could.
If ANYONE wants to register here and post facts, they're free to do so. Unfortunately, most of the post we've seen from Palm/PalmSource employees over the years have been a revolting mix of Astroturfing, press releases, B.S., "optimistic" statements, and outright boldfaced lies.
What kind of platform is it that can't withstand the scrutiny of independent examination? I find it interesting to hear that you're evidently now an expert on statistics regarding how posts affect website traffic. Please enlighten us further, Professor Beersy. We await your words of wisdom, Sensei...
Ryan's decision? Yes. Is it a good one? I think by this time Ryan's heard all the arguments and made his decision. I disagree with it and think he's mistaken if he believes it to be in his interest or the interest of free discussion. But this has been discussed to death and I don't see much point discussing it further.
If you really believe what you wrote then why do you insist on bashing TVoR every chance you get? Why all the not-so-veiled threats to Ryan about how TVoR's presence has supposedly cost Ryan readership/money/reputation/dates/karma/friends/fill in the blank? Why do you continue to discuss it "to death"? What's your hidden agenda, Beersy? Posters like just_little_me, Michael Mace, Dianne Hackborn, David Schlesinger et. al. each have/had an obvious financial stimulus behind their attempts to discredit TVoR. Besides your obviously overwhelming need to brownnose with PalmSource employees, what drives you to keep attacking TVoR, Beersy? Let it go, man. Let it go.
TVoR
RE: Gekko and TVoR - Hahaha
What kind of platform is it that can't withstand the scrutiny of independent examination?
Oh please. You call the little cartoon you just posted "examination of a platform"? Or perhaps you are referring to your endless "biotch-slapping" anal sex comments?
Perhaps you would like to name one post you have made on this topic that offers a single iota of analysis about the platform in question. You've got eleven to choose from right now.
We're waiting for the link.
David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog
Beersy, Beersy, Beersy...
Ummm... when did I say every word I post is an "examination of a platform"? Much as Shakespeare included Rosencrantz & Guildenstern for people like you, the biotchslapping occurs because that's what you need, Beersy.
So Beersy my Biotch, click on my User Name and you'll have a number of stunning, insightful posts to choose from. Do a Google search and you can create a literary masterpiece within seconds. I realize you have a crippling need to be spoon (breast?)-fed, but get off your fat lazy a$$ and search for yourself, Sweetie.
It's amusing to see how long you'lltry to keep this off-topic tripe going. Carry on.
Take care.
TVoR
RE: Gekko and TVoR - Hahaha
Shakespeare is spinning in his grave!
TVoR, you truly have the most towering ego I've ever seen. I'm not sure whether to impressed, repulsed or sad...
Tim
I apologise for any and all emoticons that appear in my posts. You may shoot them on sight.
Treo 270 ---> Treo 650
RE: Gekko and TVoR - Hahaha
Alas, poor PDA makers, we hardly knew ye.
The Royal Court of TVoR
Actually, Bacon is probably looking down, smiling. The Bard was a mere puppet on a string.
TVoR, you truly have the most towering ego I've ever seen. I'm not sure whether to impressed, repulsed or sad...
Actually, given my impressive talents one could say that I'm actually exceptionally humble. Awe is the appropriate response.
TVoR
RE: Gekko and TVoR - Hahaha
Timothy Rapson said:
"I wonder why I am still reading here."
It's like a support group where you can share your pain with fellow junkies. PDAholics Anonymous. Also, lots of smart people post here. Some of the developer stuff makes me feel extra-intelligenter by just making it through to the end. ;)
Tim
I apologise for any and all emoticons that appear in my posts. You may shoot them on sight.
Treo 270 ---> Treo 650
RE: Manufacturer?
E-T
e-tellurian
Completing the e-com circle with a people driven we-com solution
WiFi & BT? No strings attached
we_tellurian@canada.com
OK, Back to the discussion
Thanks.
Sharp Zaurus 5500
Tungsten T5
Treo 650
Tapwave Zodiac 2
:-)
RE: OK, Back to the discussion
David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog
RE: OK, Back to the discussion
The way the carriers are going, I'm imagining that usable alp based phones are going to be locked down and the only way you're going to get new code on them is to qualify it through the carrier.
Expect signed-ap-only execution on linux phones in the near future.
May You Live in Interesting Times
RE: OK, Back to the discussion
I agree. For the majority of handsets (mass market) this is most likely what will happen. Some carriers may try it at the high end, too, for a time. I spoke with Albert Chu for a little while about this, though, and he's convinced that there will be a tier of handset that is open and marketed to sophisticated users. Carriers will experience a lot of pushback on locked-down smartphones and there will be competitive pressures. Once they've seen that platforms like ALP can successfully protect their networks from rogue applications, open handsets will become more and more the norm. It's obviously a big question, though.
PalmSource VP of engineering Mike Kelley discussed this during his LinuxWorld address: http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2162458/linux-phone-seeks-lock-users
David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog
RE: OK, Back to the discussion
And they will respond as they do on every issue: our way or the highway.
at least in the US and, perhaps, the EU.
May You Live in Interesting Times
RE: OK, Back to the discussion
Carrier domination today = carrier death tomorrow.
VoIP killed the cellphone star
Carrier domination today = carrier death tomorrow.
I think the carriers are already doomed and landline Telcos are toast as well. The public's reaction to the upcoming free Google phone service is going to send cataclysmic shockwaves through the industry. I gave up my landline service for another cellphone line and with VoIP I could easily replace one of those cellphone lines. After years of dealing with the imbeciles at Pacific Bell and Sprint I can't wait until I'm able to see them hurting.
TVoR
RE: OK, Back to the discussion
WiMax is a decade or more away. In dense urban areas. And a lot farther away than that when it comes to roaming at automobile speeds. Maybe one day it'll be a competitor to the cell carriers. Not any time soon.
As far as "google phone", I'm in Mountain View. Even a few miles away from the Goog campus their free wi-fi is pretty much unusuable.
GOOG's a paper tiger, outside of selling advertising associated with search.
May You Live in Interesting Times
RE: OK, Back to the discussion
So I guess my point is that in order for VoIP to be an attractive option for most of the world, it will have to offer competitive capped plans and have a greater reliability than the 99.9999% uptime currently offered by "real" telcos. Given that my internet goes down for brief periods at least once a week, and usually at inopportune moments, I find it hard to believe that VoIP is the telcos' death knell. At least for the next couple of years.
I actually think it's more likely the carriers will get a clue and begin deploying their own WiFi/WiMax networks, and they'll begin offering their own VoIP services. Change or die...
Tim
I apologise for any and all emoticons that appear in my posts. You may shoot them on sight.
Treo 270 ---> Treo 650
Signed apps and carriers
Talking about smartphones, signed apps and carriers, dont all new Symbian S60 3rd edition phones require the apps to be signed?
Remember, a very large percentage of users never install any apps at all. A big proportion of the rest would properly like the security of getting their apps from the carrier store also.
Surur
They said I only argued for the sake of arguing, but after an hour I convinced them they were wrong...
Hey!! I made associate writer at PDA247. Come see my nattering over there!!
www.clieuk.co.uk/wm.shtml
Singed apps, how it works in Symbian
Operators locking handsets to Symbian Signed
Published by Rafe Blandford at 14:09 BST, August 15th
Simon Judge is reporting on his blog that some operators (Vodafone Japan) are locking down S60 3rd Edition handsets so that only Symbian Signed applications can be installed. This means that self-signed applications can not be installed.With the introduction of Symbian OS 9 Symbian introduced a new platform security model. This associates phone functions (such as writing files to the phone's memory, use of Bluetooth, access to certain APIs etc.) as capabilities. Signing an application allows it to use given capabilities on the phone.
All applications and install files for Symbian OS 9 must be signed in some way. The two main ways to do this are through Symbian Signed and via self-signing. Symbian Signed costs between £75 and £200 per signing instances (and additional set up costs of around £400). Self-signing is free.
Symbian Signed allows access to all but the seven most resticted capabilities on the phone (these capabilities can only be accessed with an extra level of manufacturer approval). Self-signing allows application access to a more limited set of capabilities than Symbian Signed. General capabilities that are not considered a major security risk can be access via self signed applications. Where there is a small security risk (such as the use of Bluetooth or use of the Network to retrieve data) self signed application must gain user permission to access these capabilities (in the form of a dialog that asks user the grant these capabilities to an application).
If a user attempts to install a self signed application and the phone security permissions are set to not allow self signed application install the phone will throw the error message: 'certificate error, contact application provider'. In most cases it is possible to change the security settings of the phone to allow such applications to be installed. In App Manager -> Options -> Settings, Software Installation should be set to All (from Signed). This will allow self-signed applications to be installed.
However Symbian does allow operators to lock this down. Theoretically operators could lock things down so that no application (even Symbian Signed) could be installed. Many operator operators choose to not allow self-signed application by default, but DO allow user to change this setting. However in the case of Vodafone Japan this is NOT allowed. The Software Installation option in App Manager settings is not present and therefore is not possible to allow self-signed application to be installed (see screenshots on Simon's blog).
Self-signed application are mainly freeware or application and games from smaller developers. Nearly all third party themes are also self signed. However it is worth noting that self-signed application are quite safe, especially when compared to other platforms and previous versions of the Symbian OS. Because of both the restricted set of capabilities and the requirement to gain user permission before using basic capabilities self-signed applications are much safer than their equivalents on other platforms. They are much safer than self signed applications on previous versions of Symbian OS and are arguable safer that Symbian Signed applications from pervious versions of the OS (prior to Symbian OS 8 Symbian Signed only guaranteed identity).
Locking out self-signed application reduces the number of applications available to users and raises the cost of development for niche products. Although signing costs are relatively small the investment is required before application sales can begin and therefore may make development economically impossible for applications with a small target audience.
If your operator has restricted your handset we are interested in hearing from you. Please leave a note in the comment thread or contact us directly.
Summary of Symbian OS 9 Phones Security Levels:
Open Phone - can install both Symbian Signed and self-signed install files by default.Open 'Locked' Phone, self-signed restricted - Symbian Signed by deafult only, self-signed via settings change.Closed 'Locked' Phone - Symbian Signed install files only.
Currently most SIM free and some operator phones fall into category 1. Some SIM free phones and many operator phones fall into category 2. Category 2 is less desirable because of unclear error messages and user intervention required to allow self -signed applications to be installed. Branded phones from Vodafone Japan (N71) fall into category 3. Category 3 phones are the least desirable because they restrict the number of applications that can be installed.
Update
As one of our commentators correctly points out this limitation was also present in the Nokia 6630 variant that shipped on the Vodafone Japan network. Japan does have a different approach to mobile platforms and software than the rest of the world. The two major phone platforms in Japan (Symbian MOAP and Linux) similarly do not allow the installation on uncertified third party software.
Categories: Hardware, Developer, Editorial Thoughts
Platforms: General, S60 3rd Edition, UIQ 3
The two major phone platforms in Japan (Symbian MOAP and Linux) similarly do not allow the installation on uncertified third party software.
Isnt Access a Japanese company?
Surur
They said I only argued for the sake of arguing, but after an hour I convinced them they were wrong...
Hey!! I made associate writer at PDA247. Come see my nattering over there!!
www.clieuk.co.uk/wm.shtml
RE: OK, Back to the discussion
> 99.9999% uptime currently offered by "real" telcos...
It's actually 99.999% ("5 9s") that the POTS claim (a few minutes per year downtime).
In the past, maybe here, certainly elsewhere, I've seen discussions about whether or not 5 9s is even necessary or something to strive for now that we have multiple ways to communicate. Vonage, for example, has the feature that will automatically forward calls to an alternate number if the broadband-one that had been attempted to be reached can't be reached due to network problems. Thus your cellphone serves as the redundant backup. Who needs 5 9s under such a situation? Or perhaps much more correctly "Who needs to pay the extra cost of 'guaranteeing' 5 9s reliability for each subsystem under such a scenario?".
;-O
Surur
Yes surur, ACCESS is a Japanese company (http://www.access.co.jp/).
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/rhetorical
TVoRhetoric
RE: OK, Back to the discussion
The language issue is resolved with translation softwear.
Trade is no issue once the core groups have their work completed, with exchange of value more trade can take place.
Prototyping with translation software makes sense.
E-T
e-tellurian
Completing the e-com circle with a people driven we-com solution
WiFi & BT? No strings attached
we_tellurian@canada.com
RE: OK, Back to the discussion
E-T
e-tellurian
Completing the e-com circle with a people driven we-com solution
WiFi & BT? No strings attached
we_tellurian@canada.com
Microsoft Windows Vista now on sale at Amazon
It's time to upgrade your PC's OS and forget about all this Linux/ALPO foolishness.
RE: Microsoft Windows Vista now on sale at Amazon
E-T
e-tellurian
Completing the e-com circle with a people driven we-com solution
WiFi & BT? No strings attached
we_tellurian@canada.com
RE: Microsoft Windows Vista now on sale at Amazon
-------------------------------
PocketFactory, www.pocketfactory.com
Elitist Snob, www.elitistsnob.com
RE: Microsoft Windows Vista now on sale at Amazon
Someone set us up the Vista. You are on your on way to blue screen of death"
-------------------------------
PocketFactory, www.pocketfactory.com
Elitist Snob, www.elitistsnob.com
Anyone who buys Vista in 2006 is a gullible fool
You have no chance to survive make your time
RE: Microsoft Windows Vista now on sale at Amazon
You keep grinding out that rent money at the psych ward help desk. It's noble work you're doing.
RE: Microsoft Windows Vista now on sale at Amazon
Ah..like Shakespeare to my ears.
-------------------------------
PocketFactory, www.pocketfactory.com
Elitist Snob, www.elitistsnob.com
Did I miss the Nokia words somewhere?
== "...What’s next in wireless? What’s really exciting in the
== pipeline?
==
== The big story to come is Linux on mobile devices..."
RE: Did I miss the Nokia words somewhere?
There was a study released at LinuxWorld that predicted Nokia will soon port the S60 platform to Linux:
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS6801885795.html
In general, the paper authors believe that Linux will "prevail over many of today's creditable contestants." They expect top phone vendor Nokia to eventually port its S60 software to Linux, an expensive proposition, but no more so than paying $100M to license Symbian each year. They write, "The question is not whether S60 ... will migrate over time towards Linux, but when."
David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog
RE: Did I miss the Nokia words somewhere?
David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog
Latest Comments
- I got one -Tuckermaclain
- RE: Don't we have this already? -Tuckermaclain
- RE: Palm brand will return in 2018, with devices built by TCL -richf
- RE: Palm brand will return in 2018, with devices built by TCL -dmitrygr
- Palm phone on HDblog -palmato
- Palm PVG100 -hgoldner
- RE: Like Deja Vu -PacManFoo
- Like Deja Vu -T_W
ALP-OS doesn't have a snowball's chance of surviving.
I hope Palm is able to reach an agreement with the Access people to acquire rights to continue development of PalmOS, because otherwise we may as well all switch to mature platforms like Windows Mobile and Symbian when our PalmOS devices finally die. ALP is about as attractive to me as Copeland and BeOS were. Thanks, but no thanks.
TVoR