Fossil Wrist PDA Scrapped and Pushed Back

Posted By: Ryan Thursday, January 22, 2004 10:23:33 AM

After numerous delays, Fossil has finally admitted the cancellation of the Palm OS Wrist PDA. The company has cited problems with the LCD display manufacturer as the main reason for all the release problems. A new less expensive and more powerful version of the watch is now expected in "the middle of this year."

Fossil Palm OS Wrist PDA ~ Click For LargerFossil has confirmed the cancellation in an article at InfoWorld. The companies website now states, "The product is no longer available." According to details in the article, "Fossil has experienced a number of problems over the past year regarding the 1-inch display of the Wrist PDA [...], according to a company spokesman. The LCD (liquid crystal display) partner that Fossil and manufacturing partner Flextronics International Ltd. chose for the Wrist PDA was unable to deliver a display that met minimum quality standards."

Instead of going forward with the Wrist PDA, Fossil has decided to work on a new less expensive and more powerful version that id due out in the middle of 2004. It is said to ship with higher performing components and will be more competitive with current PDAs.

The Wrist PDA was first announced in November of 2002. It received a Best of Comdex 2002 award as well. It was originally scheduled to be available in June 2003. Shortly after June, the Amazon.com stated the release would be pushed back to July 31st. It was then pushed back to september and then put on an indefinite delay. Fossil did not return a phone call for comments.

It was to run Palm OS 4.1 and be fully compatible with most Palm applications. It featured an illuminated 1.4-inch, 160 x 160 pixel touch screen with a stylus integrated into the watch band, a 33 MHz Motorola Dragonball VZ processor, 2MB internal memory and a rocker switch.

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Smartphones make Wrist PDAs Redundant

Gekko @ 1/22/2004 11:23:11 AM #
Smartphones make Wrist PDAs Redundant


RE: Smartphones make Wrist PDAs Redundant
mikecane @ 1/22/2004 11:34:01 AM #
Redundancy is sometimes good. What if you lose the smartphone?

Not that I would buy a wrist PDA to begin with...

RE: Smartphones make Wrist PDAs Redundant
Gekko @ 1/22/2004 12:47:57 PM #
>"What if you lose the smartphone?"

That's what synchronization and backups are for.



RE: Smartphones make Wrist PDAs Redundant
gfunkmagic @ 1/22/2004 7:04:49 PM #
FYI, not everyone carries a phone with them all the time, and even fewer people carry a pda either! A PDA-watch makes sense for someone who just wants simple PIM functionality without the hassle of carrying a phone or anything else. There are many places and occasions where carrying a smartphone/mobile is not possible or convenient. In these instances a PDA watch would be a very easy to wear and convenient solution. In fact the "wear" aspect is the most important distinction here. However powerful or capable a pda or phone may be, it can never compete with a watch in terms of mobility b/c it truely is easy to carry around where ever you go. I personally am all for PalmOS becoming ever more ubiquitous among personal electronic devices and appliances in the future...

I support http://Tapland.com/

--------------------
GNM

RE: Smartphones make Wrist PDAs Redundant
mikecane @ 1/23/2004 10:21:04 AM #
Gee, wouldn't that make a *great* ad tag-line for those MS-based SPOT watches? BTW, I'm sick of seeing all their damned ads plastered around NYC. Tell them to cease and desist, ska...

Haha

drillmaggot @ 1/22/2004 11:57:47 AM #
Scrap the project.
Dick Tracy days are over.
I don't even wear a watch any more.
-drillmaggot Out

less expensive and more powerful? how's that?

a3 @ 1/22/2004 12:00:58 PM #
I wonder what do they mean with less expensive (how much where they asking for the never seen version?) and more powerful (color?). Anyway, I won't believe a word until I see them in retail stores not only on websites.

____________________________________________
Former Tapwave's Helix fan, now a T|T3 fan.
RE: less expensive and more powerful? how's that?
JonathanChoo @ 1/23/2004 4:21:02 AM #
for example, a TE is less expensive and more powerful than a m505 when it was new. This is actually good news. I won't get one but I know of many people who actually wants a PDA watch. If it future wrist PDAs has built in Bluetooth it could even rival MSN's Spot 'smart' watches.

Generic Casio > Psion 5/StarTac > Vx > m505 > Sony N770C > Sony T625C/Ericsson T39m > Sony NR70V > Toshiba e310 > Tungsten T/Ericsson T68m > HP h2210 > Tungsten T3/Ericsson T610

No

madmaxmedia @ 1/22/2004 12:25:41 PM #
I don't need a watch, my PDA tells the time for me in all sorts of different time zones.

Anyways, this thing looked dorkier than those calculator watches that were in vogue in the 80's.

RE: No
4s @ 1/22/2004 12:32:41 PM #
I am not sure how vogue they were even then.

<><
RE: No
GregGaub @ 1/22/2004 12:40:22 PM #
Of course you don't need a watch when you're carrying around a big old PDA in your cargo pocket. But wouldn't it be cool to put all those vital appointements and data in a super-small, wrist-wearable device, and leave the clunky PDA at home or office? No, you won't be doing spreadsheets or word processing on this, but for the vast majority of users, who only use their device for basic PIM, and sometimes a little more, this will be great.

Of course, to be truly useful to the PIC crowd, it needs to be color, 16mb, and have bluetooth, so it can check your e-mail while your BT phone is still in your pocket, and you can see your new messages at a glance. hehe, maybe next year.

-- SeaPUG: http://www.seapug.com --

RE: No
theonlymorgan @ 1/23/2004 8:13:02 AM #
Bluetooth is the only way to go with this thing. Everything should be bluetooth.

Vaporware

bigfoot @ 1/22/2004 1:08:39 PM #
Didn't Mike Cane predict this somewhere along the line? If not He should have.


Cheers

RE: Vaporware
hkklife @ 1/22/2004 2:28:08 PM #
http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_story.asp?ID=4634

I predicted way back in Nov '02 the premature demise (at worst) of this watch or a very lukewarm consumer response to its reelase (at best). I think I again predicted its vaporware status when it was delayed for the 2nd time back in mid '03. Guess I was right on that one but the Garmin iQue did finally make it to market-much to my surprise, so I'm batting .500 at this point ;-)

For the record, did any of the Fossil Palm watches ever make it to reviewers or for sale at any point at all? I forsee a sort of...uber-Geek rush to snatch up the few of these that exist and create a little world of these things as highly sought after collectors' items, constantly changing hands between a few devoted users. Much like, in fact, the Voodoo 6000 graphics cards that are the stuff of lore 3.5 years after they were canned...


RE: Vaporware
theonlymorgan @ 1/23/2004 8:11:04 AM #
I have a 2001 model of this watch, back when they were considered a pda companion.

I Love the idea, specifically the addressbook and datebk portion. unfortunetly it always crashed after much manipulation.

RE: Vaporware
mikecane @ 1/23/2004 10:22:57 AM #
No, I didn't mention this at all. It was never on my radar. I guess that was sort of a prediction right there... I was never keen on the idea.

no second hand...

dchev @ 1/23/2004 11:17:12 AM #
I played with this at palmsource seminar '03, and after getting over the initial thrill, I noticed that none of the watch display options had a second hand.
I asked about it, and the rep said that the second counter caused too much battery drain (ie. screen refresh every second). So, you could select from like a dozen different watch faces, but none of them had a second hand (analog face) or seconds counter (digital face).

My point is that it was firstly, not a good watch, and secondly, not a good PDA. The most useful thing to me for the PDA part would be to hold my phonebook, so the PDA part was acceptable for me. But the watch! I need my seconds counter!
Hopefully, they won't forget about making it a better wristwatch for the next attempt.

RE: no second hand...
GregGaub @ 1/24/2004 8:02:25 PM #
You could have the seconds counter if you wanted the battery to die halfway through the day. It's Palm OS 4, so just install a hack to shut off the auto-off timer, then pick your favorite clock app with second hand/meter and watch it to your heart's content. IMHO, I think it was a good decision they made to save battery life. We're not talking about a cheap little 30 segment LCD here, this thing has thousands of pixels to push. The only time I ever look at seconds is when I'm setting another clock/watch, to know if I should set it to the next minute or not.

-- SeaPUG: http://www.seapug.com --

Is it just me?

JarJar @ 1/23/2004 12:19:30 PM #
Is it just me, or is anybody else puzzled by this device? Even if they manage to come out with a functioning wrist PDA at a decent price, I'm not sure what to do with this thing.

It is too small for any kind of serious input or output even if the processor is capable. The only thing I would want to see is phone numbers, and I already have phone numbers in my Treo.

Fossil has done a great job trying, but this is just too small a size for a PDA (and too large for a watch).

I tried to buy one in August

iNOMAD @ 1/25/2004 1:28:42 PM #
I went to the Fossil Store in Universal studios (on vacation) in August, and they said they would have them in store in late August 2003. I think this is cooler than the msn direct watches, and besides, you can have avantgo and crappy videos on your wrist.

Im going to buy a Sony TH55!
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